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The Road Taken: The History and Future of America's Infrastructure
A renowned historian and engineer explores the past, present, and future of America's crumbling infrastructure.Acclaimed engineer and historian Henry Petroski explores our core infrastructure from both historical and contemporary perspectives, explaining how essential their maintenance is to America's economic health. Petroski reveals the genesis of the many parts of America's highway system--our interstate numbering system, the centerline that divides roads, and such taken-for-granted objects as guardrails, stop signs, and traffic lights--all crucial to our national and local infrastructure.A compelling work of history, The Road Taken is also an urgent clarion call aimed at American citizens, politicians, and anyone with a vested interest in our economic well-being. Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling, and Petroski reveals the complex and challenging interplay between government and industry inherent in major infrastructure improvement. The road we take in the next decade toward rebuilding our aging infrastructure will in large part determine our future national prosperity.
312 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 16, 2016
146 people are currently reading
1705 people want to read
About the author
Henry Petroski
36 books262 followersHenry Petroski was an American engineer specializing in failure analysis. A professor both of civil engineering and history at Duke University, he was also a prolific author.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews
April 21, 2016
I don't have the verbosity today to write a review that properly explains my feelings. The short version is, this book shouldn't say "History" in the title - this is more "Short unrelated essays on my feelings about some bridges and stuff in New York; also I google a little bit and added some things I saw in headlines of a few articles".
November 2, 2022
Henry Petroski’s 1990 The Pencil was one of the early books in a now fairly common genre, which takes ordinary objects (salt, cod, etc) and examines them in light of their history, physical attributes, and cultural impact. Petroski showed a deft hand making the ordinary pencil an object of interest. For instance, why are most pencils yellow? At one time yellow was considered elegant and associated with China, from which some of the best graphite came. Since then he has published sixteen additional books, some on engineering and society, and some along the lines of The Pencil. His book The Evolution of Useful Things explains how things like paperclips and forks did not just appear one day, but were the result of careful research to solve specific problems.
In this book he looks back on a lifetime as a civil engineer, primarily as a professor at Duke University, and explains the technical, social, political, and financial forces that affect engineering projects. The chapter on road construction was particularly good, starting with the history of various paving methods and moving on to the options available today, primarily the choice between concrete and asphalt. Concrete is much longer lasting, and if properly applied can last for decades, but asphalt is faster and easier to apply and thus cheaper, although its lifetime maintenance costs will be approximately three times its initial cost. Petroski also explains the history and eventual standardization of lane markings, causing me to actually pay attention to them for the first time.
And who knew that stoplights had such a long and complicated history? It was not until 1930 that the current order of lights, with red on top, then yellow, then green became the standard, which was a great help to the 10 per cent of male drivers who are color-blind and see both red and green as shades of gray. Even so, one Irish-American community in Syracuse, New York insisted that green should be the top color, an homage to their former homeland, and it was not until the 1960s that their stoplights followed the standard pattern.
The book has a number of interesting facts, such as:
- A million households had been established in the United States by 1800, and another million by 1825, a rate of one hundred a day.
- In 1900, city traffic was primarily horse-drawn. In New York City at the time there were 130,000 horses, each of which produced an average of about twenty-five pounds of manure and a quart of urine daily.
- Stop signs initially elicited such strong feelings of opposition that in 1922 they were ruled illegal by courts in Illinois because they were “a violation of the right of individuals to cross streets.”
- According to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, traffic congestion alone costs the country $121 billion annually in lost time, which amounts to more than $800 per driver. For truckers, the cost in wasted time and diesel fuel consumption is about $27 billion annually.
- In the United States, each day on average 650 water mains fail and seven billion gallons of water are lost through leaks, resulting in about 16 percent of clean drinking water being wasted.
- At the beginning of interstate construction in 1956, the Bureau of Public Roads, which was overseeing the program, had projected the final cost to be $27.5 billion; after the first five years of construction the revised estimated cost was $41 billion. Some of the 50 percent increase was attributed to inflation, but an estimated 10 to 20 percent of it was blamed on graft amounting to at least $100,000 per mile of highway built.
Only part of the book focuses on how engineers analyze and solve problems, the rest looks at the intersection of engineering and society. There is an instructive chapter on how the best-laid plans for replacing the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge after it was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake went awry. Initial estimates were that it would cost $200 million to retrofit the bridge and in excess of $1 billion to replace it. And then politics got involved, along with corruption, incompetence, and frequent changes to the designs, which “led state politicians to call for a criminal investigation of Caltrans by the California Highway Patrol. According to one report, Caltrans was under investigation for ‘knowingly accepting substandard work at taxpayer expense, and retaliating against those who sought to bring problems to light.’ ” By the time the new bridge opened in 2013 its price tag had risen to $6.4 billion, plus another $400 million to remove the old bridge. People of California, your tax dollars at work….
Sometimes the book meanders away from its premise as Petroski takes time to explain his personal experiences with things like the storm drains in front of his house or problems with repairs to his driveway. Although he tries to tie these incidents back to the larger issues discussed in the book, it doesn’t really work. Nevertheless I learned quite a bit, and in particular that only bad things happen when politicians start getting involved in engineering decisions.
In this book he looks back on a lifetime as a civil engineer, primarily as a professor at Duke University, and explains the technical, social, political, and financial forces that affect engineering projects. The chapter on road construction was particularly good, starting with the history of various paving methods and moving on to the options available today, primarily the choice between concrete and asphalt. Concrete is much longer lasting, and if properly applied can last for decades, but asphalt is faster and easier to apply and thus cheaper, although its lifetime maintenance costs will be approximately three times its initial cost. Petroski also explains the history and eventual standardization of lane markings, causing me to actually pay attention to them for the first time.
And who knew that stoplights had such a long and complicated history? It was not until 1930 that the current order of lights, with red on top, then yellow, then green became the standard, which was a great help to the 10 per cent of male drivers who are color-blind and see both red and green as shades of gray. Even so, one Irish-American community in Syracuse, New York insisted that green should be the top color, an homage to their former homeland, and it was not until the 1960s that their stoplights followed the standard pattern.
The book has a number of interesting facts, such as:
- A million households had been established in the United States by 1800, and another million by 1825, a rate of one hundred a day.
- In 1900, city traffic was primarily horse-drawn. In New York City at the time there were 130,000 horses, each of which produced an average of about twenty-five pounds of manure and a quart of urine daily.
- Stop signs initially elicited such strong feelings of opposition that in 1922 they were ruled illegal by courts in Illinois because they were “a violation of the right of individuals to cross streets.”
- According to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, traffic congestion alone costs the country $121 billion annually in lost time, which amounts to more than $800 per driver. For truckers, the cost in wasted time and diesel fuel consumption is about $27 billion annually.
- In the United States, each day on average 650 water mains fail and seven billion gallons of water are lost through leaks, resulting in about 16 percent of clean drinking water being wasted.
- At the beginning of interstate construction in 1956, the Bureau of Public Roads, which was overseeing the program, had projected the final cost to be $27.5 billion; after the first five years of construction the revised estimated cost was $41 billion. Some of the 50 percent increase was attributed to inflation, but an estimated 10 to 20 percent of it was blamed on graft amounting to at least $100,000 per mile of highway built.
Only part of the book focuses on how engineers analyze and solve problems, the rest looks at the intersection of engineering and society. There is an instructive chapter on how the best-laid plans for replacing the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge after it was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake went awry. Initial estimates were that it would cost $200 million to retrofit the bridge and in excess of $1 billion to replace it. And then politics got involved, along with corruption, incompetence, and frequent changes to the designs, which “led state politicians to call for a criminal investigation of Caltrans by the California Highway Patrol. According to one report, Caltrans was under investigation for ‘knowingly accepting substandard work at taxpayer expense, and retaliating against those who sought to bring problems to light.’ ” By the time the new bridge opened in 2013 its price tag had risen to $6.4 billion, plus another $400 million to remove the old bridge. People of California, your tax dollars at work….
Sometimes the book meanders away from its premise as Petroski takes time to explain his personal experiences with things like the storm drains in front of his house or problems with repairs to his driveway. Although he tries to tie these incidents back to the larger issues discussed in the book, it doesn’t really work. Nevertheless I learned quite a bit, and in particular that only bad things happen when politicians start getting involved in engineering decisions.
May 3, 2016
Started strong, got bogged down in multiple chapters on politics and financing, fizzled out somewhere around the tenth anecdote about the author's driveway.
January 7, 2017
This is basically a book written by your rambling grandpa who used to be a civil engineer. It's got some really interesting facts about the history of infrastructure sprinkled throughout, but they're buried in a text that is otherwise disorganized, dry, and weirdly pedantic. Petroski feels the need to devote many pages to defining basic terms everyone knows or describing objects familiar to everyone. He has a whole paragraph defining a "shunpike", as though you can't figure out that it just means that people don't like to pay tolls, for god's sake!
The book is "organized" around the verses of Robert Frost's famous poem, but all this means is that a phrase from the poem titles each chapter, although the chapter itself likely has f@*k-all to do with the quote. Indeed, many of the chapters don't even have an internally consistent theme, but instead appear to be a stream-of-consciousness riff on whatever vaguely infrastructural topics occurred to Petroski that day.
It's a maddening thing, because out of this senescent miasma occasionally emerges a coherent and cogent thought, where he will say something intelligent about the ways in which the political process or public/private collaboration impacts infrastructure projects. Then, it's back into the soup! I really wish someone could have grabbed Petroski by the lapels and forced him to write a better book about this topic, rather than turning in these half-baked musings. This topic is inherently fascinating and he's clearly a well-informed guy, or at least he was before senility crept in...
The book is "organized" around the verses of Robert Frost's famous poem, but all this means is that a phrase from the poem titles each chapter, although the chapter itself likely has f@*k-all to do with the quote. Indeed, many of the chapters don't even have an internally consistent theme, but instead appear to be a stream-of-consciousness riff on whatever vaguely infrastructural topics occurred to Petroski that day.
It's a maddening thing, because out of this senescent miasma occasionally emerges a coherent and cogent thought, where he will say something intelligent about the ways in which the political process or public/private collaboration impacts infrastructure projects. Then, it's back into the soup! I really wish someone could have grabbed Petroski by the lapels and forced him to write a better book about this topic, rather than turning in these half-baked musings. This topic is inherently fascinating and he's clearly a well-informed guy, or at least he was before senility crept in...
March 11, 2016
OK, so it's probably no surprise that a civil engineer like me loved this book. But it's a great read for anyone interested in the history and nature of our public infrastructure and the ongoing needs that threaten it each day. Petroski is a civil engineering and history professor at Duke University, and I've read most of his other books which are also excellent. He mixes a good amount of interesting history of specific projects with a modern perspective of our ongoing needs and research - from the Romans to experimental techniques. Also there is a good bit of economic and political history regarding infrastructure, including some prominent fails of the past and a great section on privately-funded infrastructure projects.
September 23, 2022
A collection of essays and case studies along with historical and personal anecdotes about all types of infrastructure, mostly roads and bridges, tied together with chapter titles that each refer to a line from Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken." It was more enjoyable than it should have been given what could have been a really dull subject. The author is a professor and I can imagine a liberal arts "topics in engineering infrastructure" type of course using this as a core text. Each chapter seems like it's own little lecture or the jumping off point for a course of study.
February 6, 2017
A good book highlighting the importance and history of America's infrastructure.
May 22, 2023
Quick read with some interesting anecdotes but overall felt a bit inconsistent from chapter to chapter. I would have preferred a book that focused more on the development of all the different aspects of the road. This seemed to try to cover that and a broad look at the future which made it feel a bit awkward to read.
May 8, 2018
I learned so much from this book. The origin of the traffic light was a particularly engaging story. It got a bit dry at times, going into the specific details of certain projects. Although the examples were so pertinent to the points made, I wonder if the details could be more easily summarized for those of us who merely dabble in infrastructure-related work/hobbies/activism.
April 1, 2018
Interesting overview on transportation infrastructure
February 23, 2017
At the offset the author states that he will seek to be nonpartisan, but that all writing is bias. Far enough, and I appreciated his candor, so it didn't bother me much when he, inevitably, leaned to one side.
I was hoping the read more about the history and future of infrastructure and less Petroski's own personal feelings on the matter, but alas, this was not to be. Still, it's his book he wrote it, so he gets to say what he wants. And say it he does. It seems only he and others like him are gifted with the vision of the anointed when he pontificates on matters, whether local or residential. I began to feel that he really believed that if only the powers that be would let all matters rest in his capable hands, the whole world would be so much better off.
After his Nth citing of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (can you see my eyes rolling all the way from here?) I knew firmly where he stood on matters. As if to drive the point home, he quotes Krugman yet one more time in opining on maters of infrastructure and Congress with the following in a chapter on fuel taxes, trust funds, and politics, "At the time, Congress was facing what essentially should have been the three perennial questions about the federal government's involvement n the nation's transportation infrastructure: How much should be spent on highways? How should this funds be raised? How should the use of those funds be credited?" Notably absent from the list is the whether the government should be involved at all.
I'm not so partisan as to think that there's no role for government in infrastructure, but Petroski definitely downplayed the idea of by how much and takes the reader on a more personal journey than he does an objective one. Other readers may be better served by some of the literature found in the bibliography than in his tome itself.
I was hoping the read more about the history and future of infrastructure and less Petroski's own personal feelings on the matter, but alas, this was not to be. Still, it's his book he wrote it, so he gets to say what he wants. And say it he does. It seems only he and others like him are gifted with the vision of the anointed when he pontificates on matters, whether local or residential. I began to feel that he really believed that if only the powers that be would let all matters rest in his capable hands, the whole world would be so much better off.
After his Nth citing of New York Times columnist Paul Krugman (can you see my eyes rolling all the way from here?) I knew firmly where he stood on matters. As if to drive the point home, he quotes Krugman yet one more time in opining on maters of infrastructure and Congress with the following in a chapter on fuel taxes, trust funds, and politics, "At the time, Congress was facing what essentially should have been the three perennial questions about the federal government's involvement n the nation's transportation infrastructure: How much should be spent on highways? How should this funds be raised? How should the use of those funds be credited?" Notably absent from the list is the whether the government should be involved at all.
I'm not so partisan as to think that there's no role for government in infrastructure, but Petroski definitely downplayed the idea of by how much and takes the reader on a more personal journey than he does an objective one. Other readers may be better served by some of the literature found in the bibliography than in his tome itself.
March 11, 2018
This book is just ok. Each chapter focuses on a different part of the history of infrastructure in America. Some of the stories were interesting and some were not. The writer is an engineer who is trying to write for a broader audience. He succeeds at being fairly easy to understand, but is not necessarily very exciting. As a Civil Engineer who enjoys history I was able to push through, but I'm not sure that many others will enjoy the book. I did learn some information and it was somewhat useful to get a summary of the conventional wisdom on America's infrastructure history. As far as the actual thesis of the book, the writer spends a lot of time referencing the ASCE report which calls for huge increases in funding due to the poor condition of American infrastructure. As a Strong Towns advocate, it was sad that there was none or very little discussion of the overbuilt nature of our transportation system. He just repeated over and over that funding needed to be increased or the cost would get even higher. It seems fairly obvious to me that an entirely new approach is needed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 8, 2019
This book was a gift, and I was very excited to read it. My whole life I've read about and experienced failing infrastructure all around me, and I'm interested in finding a better way forward. The subheading of the book describes it as the "history and future of America's infrastructure," so I thought this would be a great way to start.
Instead, as I increasingly find to be the rule, the vast majority of the book concerns the historical minutiae of colors of traffic signs and the evolution of the curb. There is no original thought about the future of infrastructure, only cautionary tale of what to avoid. This book should have been sold as a history, nothing more.
I've resisted the urge to give a one star rating because, as a history wonk, I always enjoy learning, and I now better understand how public works are funded. But again, I'm annoyed that a book billed as discussing the future of infrastructure dedicated no sincere thought to how we are to proceed into a radically different future.
Instead, as I increasingly find to be the rule, the vast majority of the book concerns the historical minutiae of colors of traffic signs and the evolution of the curb. There is no original thought about the future of infrastructure, only cautionary tale of what to avoid. This book should have been sold as a history, nothing more.
I've resisted the urge to give a one star rating because, as a history wonk, I always enjoy learning, and I now better understand how public works are funded. But again, I'm annoyed that a book billed as discussing the future of infrastructure dedicated no sincere thought to how we are to proceed into a radically different future.
May 29, 2017
I’ve read a number of Henry Petroski’s books in the past, and I’ve enjoyed them all. In this 2016 book,
The Road Taken
, he delves into the American infrastructure – past, present, and future. He correctly points out, “We tend to be oblivious to much of our infrastructure, even when it is in plain sight, until something goes wrong with it.”
However, I could not get into this one. That’s not to say that Petroski hasn’t brought forward a number of important historical and policy discussions over roads, bridges, railroads, and more. I agree with his overall comment, “Infrastructure investment may be thought of as a down payment on the future.”
I encourage you to see what you think about what Petroski advocates and how we can get behind voting “for roads and against potholes; for fixing our bridges” and for infrastructure projects that support the common good.
However, I could not get into this one. That’s not to say that Petroski hasn’t brought forward a number of important historical and policy discussions over roads, bridges, railroads, and more. I agree with his overall comment, “Infrastructure investment may be thought of as a down payment on the future.”
I encourage you to see what you think about what Petroski advocates and how we can get behind voting “for roads and against potholes; for fixing our bridges” and for infrastructure projects that support the common good.
September 12, 2017
Have to agree with reviewers James and Aerin - this seemed focused on the east coast, New York in particular, and had lots of history of politics, not too much I found interesting.
Maybe I should have paid more attention to the description or the prior reviewers. I skimmed a lot of this, finding some of the vignettes about bridges or infrastructure more interesting than pages and chapters of government mismanagement, disagreement, partisan politics, and corruption.
But I have to acknowledge that, my interest aside, it was well-researched and well-written. I was looking for something more cultural about modern day traffic. I did find the last chapter, about upcoming technology like autonomous vehicles and self-healing pavement, interesting.
Maybe I should have paid more attention to the description or the prior reviewers. I skimmed a lot of this, finding some of the vignettes about bridges or infrastructure more interesting than pages and chapters of government mismanagement, disagreement, partisan politics, and corruption.
But I have to acknowledge that, my interest aside, it was well-researched and well-written. I was looking for something more cultural about modern day traffic. I did find the last chapter, about upcoming technology like autonomous vehicles and self-healing pavement, interesting.
March 21, 2017
I bought this book at the local Barnes & Noble (always a gamble). The title intrigued me, but the reviews on the back cover were causes of concern. (If nobody lends their personal name to a book review, leaving newspapers and magazines to do the devil's work, then what you have is certified crap.) Alas, my phone was dead, and the adjacent woman who I WAS NOT attracted to was in no mood to consult online reviews for complete strangers. I ended up buying the book for 18 bucks.
Big mistake. Other reviewers have summed it up rather well: this book isn't a detailed history of American infrastructure, but really, it's about Henry and his interest in roads. It's sort of a WTF? book. I don't blame Henry so much as Bloomsbury for delivering the wrong product to the wrong audience.
Actually, I do blame Henry for one thing, a typical New York gaffe: in Chapter 1, he writes about his childhood in Brooklyn without prefacing or contextualizing place names because, you know, NYC is the center of the universe. Last I checked, 2.5% of the American population lives in New York - and the other 97.5% doesn't give a shit.
Big mistake. Other reviewers have summed it up rather well: this book isn't a detailed history of American infrastructure, but really, it's about Henry and his interest in roads. It's sort of a WTF? book. I don't blame Henry so much as Bloomsbury for delivering the wrong product to the wrong audience.
Actually, I do blame Henry for one thing, a typical New York gaffe: in Chapter 1, he writes about his childhood in Brooklyn without prefacing or contextualizing place names because, you know, NYC is the center of the universe. Last I checked, 2.5% of the American population lives in New York - and the other 97.5% doesn't give a shit.
June 14, 2018
A surprisingly engaging work on infrastructure, of all things! A little history, a little description of the various kinds of infra and what role they play, how that infra fails, and what it takes and will take to keep it all together.
SPOILER ALERT: We're not doing a very good job keeping the infra we have in decent shape and it won't get any easier as time passes.
You won't stay up all night reading this all in one go but it's worth the time. I should say it's more of an in-depth introductory work to the broad array of motor transportation infra than a look at one particular aspect. There is nothing here of marine, rail, or mass transit infra.
SPOILER ALERT: We're not doing a very good job keeping the infra we have in decent shape and it won't get any easier as time passes.
You won't stay up all night reading this all in one go but it's worth the time. I should say it's more of an in-depth introductory work to the broad array of motor transportation infra than a look at one particular aspect. There is nothing here of marine, rail, or mass transit infra.
April 9, 2018
I have to give it 4 stars (instead of 3) because it is what it claims to be: a history of America’s infrastructure. As a Civil Engineer in transportation it did have a lot of interesting bits of history and information that fascinated me, but the majority of the book gave me the feeling that I was listening to a grandpa relive his glory days while sitting on his porch swing and sipping a Budweiser. There are bits of personal opinions and gripes scattered throughout.
Overall, I’m glad I read it. Even if it did take me a couple years to finally finish it.
Overall, I’m glad I read it. Even if it did take me a couple years to finally finish it.
May 2, 2022
I didn't finish this book because it was super late at the library and the librarian basically made me return it. That said, I checked out a book about asphalt and then faulted it for being a book about asphalt. There were some interesting pieces and anecdotes in here, but overall I found the organization of the book lacking...he skipped around from topic to topic without clear direction, and many of the anecdotes of actions ended kind of abruptly without being tied into the rest of the material in the chapter. The book was OK, but not the best.
December 18, 2017
When talking to people who are returning from their first visit to the United States, one sometimes finds that they are surprised that our country is not quite as modern as they anticipated. Indeed, we seem to be letting our infrastructure slide in ways that I didn't think possible when I was younger. Infrastructure is one of those things we take for granted until it's not there and this book points out that we're not keeping up with a sector that is vital to our economy.
February 5, 2019
I picked this up because I've enjoyed a number of Henry Petroski's other books. Unfortunately, this one felt like kind of a chore to read. I definitely learned a few things about the history of / important issues facing our ageing infrastructure. It just felt like too much minute detail to really hold my attention. Also wasn't clear that the book had a single overarching message; more like a disconnected series of anecdotes.
January 17, 2025
Overall a mess. The chapters seem to be more like a collection essays and articles. I did learn some things but overall it was basic and completely disorganized. He could have made his subject based approach work, but he did not since the subjects were not clear and instead based on whatever he wanted to talk about. I learned more about the history of names and anecdotes on infrastructure than a concrete history of infrastructure in the US.
August 20, 2017
I'm a fan of Petroski's work. This one's not his best, but still solid. Seemed repetitive in some chapters. Was selfishly disappointed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel was not featured anywhere; I've always considered that quite an automotive marvel. Anyway, anyone keen on engineering history will probably enjoy.
August 31, 2018
Petroski is a civil engineering professor and he writes, unfortunately for the reader, like a stereotypical engineer. This book has no common theme or message; each paragraph feels disconnected from the last and jumps from fleeting thought to fleeting thought. The author clearly does not know how to leave out irrelevant information. He seems to just regurgitate anything he came across in his studies. I cannot recommend this book and could not finish it myself.
October 17, 2019
A good book about American infrastructure..past, present and future. Petroski's historical chapters are extremely gripping. His chapters on the decay of American Infrastructure should be read by everyone especially politicians. Other chapters can put you to sleep especially the one about sidewalks. You can skim, skip or bounce around with this one.
November 23, 2023
Less history and more short snippets about various road projects around the country, mostly bridges.
Let me emphasize that this book also conflates “infrastructure” with “roads”. The US’ infrastructure consists of much more than that but this book clearly contains a bias towards car-centric infrastructure.
Let me emphasize that this book also conflates “infrastructure” with “roads”. The US’ infrastructure consists of much more than that but this book clearly contains a bias towards car-centric infrastructure.
June 25, 2024
I was expecting perhaps more a commentary on the future of America's infrastructure needs but this is more a history focusing on the establishment of roads and bridges in particular. Meticulously researched it will appeal to a small market but little doubt about the time and work that's gone into producing what surely must be the definitive work on the matter.
July 9, 2018
Not obsessively detailed like The Pencil, but not as meandering as The Evolution of Useful Things, The Road Taken is mostly a middle ground, though it veers away in the last few chapters. Solid, but not as good as a book like The Big Roads.
July 27, 2022
This book will teach everything you would ever want to know about roads, roadbuilding, bridges, tunnels, cars, road surfaces and anything else associated with transportation.
While some of it is heavy on technical detail, the sections of the history of various projects is quite illuminating.
While some of it is heavy on technical detail, the sections of the history of various projects is quite illuminating.
May 12, 2023
I was excited for this book but it was too poorly written. It amounted to a laundry list of facts about the funding of particular bridges. No insight. I did learn that the first stoplights were small towers in which New York policemen manually changed the lights. That one nugget of trivia was fun.
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